


to love and kill with the very same hand

by Ravenspear



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-06
Updated: 2010-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenspear/pseuds/Ravenspear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cho and Red John have a conversation about gut wounds and revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to love and kill with the very same hand

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://pensive1.livejournal.com/profile)[**pensive1**](http://pensive1.livejournal.com/) for derailing my comma trains, and for making me add about 150 words of Red John being a douchebag. :3

"Gut wound's a nasty way to go," Cho tells the gasping man strapped to the chair conversationally. His right hand, the one that is working the knife deeper into the man's abdomen, is slick and warm with blood, but his grip on the handle is tight and doesn't slip. "Especially if the guy who gave it to you knew what he was doing, because then it's not going to be the blood loss that kills you; it's going to be the sepsis once enough of the crap in your intestines has leaked out into your abdomen."

He pulls back, knife sliding smoothly out of the wound, and goes to get another chair. Then he sits down, just four feet away from the man he has just killed.

Red John, face pale from the pain, lets out a stuttering breath, eyes unfocused and darting wildly across the empty, windowless room.

"Blood loss would have been too easy a way for you to go," Cho continues, "but the sepsis? That's going to take its time. And it's going to hurt. A lot."

Red John laughs; a gravely, pained noise, and his lips are drawn into grimace that Cho suspects is supposed to be a smile. "That would have sounded a lot more meaningful if it had been Patrick and not you, agent Cho," he forces out between wheezing breaths and coughing laughs. "After all, wasn't this supposed to be _his_ revenge?"

"It still is," Cho says calmly as he watches Red John's bloodshot eyes loll around feverishly.

"Ah, but Patrick won’t see it like that," Red John says, teeth grinding together as his abdominal muscles convulse.

"He will."

"Or you will make him?"

"Yes."

"So sure of yourself," Red John says, glassy eyes settling on Cho's face. "So are you his lover, then?" he asks, baiting, and while Cho's face doesn't change, there must be something in his eyes, because Red John's mouth quirks into a smirk, and he barks out a short laugh. "Ah, I see. Well, that was a bit unexpected; I didn't know dear Patrick even had it in him anymore." He shifts in his seat as much as his restraints allow him, and smiles a truly ugly smile, victorious and vicious. "But it doesn't matter. Patrick will hate himself forever for walking out that door. All this time that he's been chasing me, and he can't bring himself to finish it. I'd pity him if it weren't so funny." He sighs, almost happily. "So you see, agent Cho, what happens now doesn't mean anything. Because Patrick couldn't kill me. I win, and he will live the rest of his life knowing that he failed."

Cho smiles faintly, nearly humourless, and his eyes are mocking. "Too bad that you won't be around to watch him prove you wrong," he says and gets up, turning his back on the dying man and walking out of the room, closing the thick metal door behind him.

When he gets upstairs, Jane is sitting slumped against the wall, his eyes unseeing and dry tear tracks lining his cheeks.

"Hey," Cho says as he kneels down in front of him. "Hey."

Jane doesn't respond; doesn't really seem to see him at all. Without thinking, he reaches out to turn Jane's face towards him, but jerks his hand to a stop inches away when he notices that it is red, still sticky with drying blood.

Jane chooses that moment to snap back to reality; red eyes focus on Cho's face for one heartbeat, before darting over to the bloody hand hovering next to his face. His voice is nearly breaking when he asks "It's over?"

Cho nods. "It's over," he promises softly.

He starts to withdraw his hand, but Jane leans into it before he can, pressing his cheek into Cho's palm with his eyes screwed tightly shut and his face a mask of grief. "I couldn't do it," he chokes out, tears running down his cheeks again as he curls in on himself. "It's been all I could think about for so long, and then I _couldn't_."

Cho moves closer, left arm going around Jane's shoulders. "It's alright," he whispers into Jane's hair. "He's dead because of you. It doesn't matter that you didn't hold the knife. It doesn't matter. It's _alright_."

And as Jane clings to him, sobbing into his shirt, Cho closes his eyes, holds Jane even tighter, and knows that, eventually, it will be.


End file.
